Cedarville University DigitalCommons@Cedarville The Research and Scholarship Symposium The 2017 yS mposium Apr 12th, 3:00 PM - 3:30 PM Cue the Music: Music in Movies Kelsey M. DePree Cedarville University, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: http://digitalcommons.cedarville.edu/ research_scholarship_symposium Part of the Composition Commons, Film and Media Studies Commons, and the Other Music Commons DePree, Kelsey M., "Cue the Music: Music in Movies" (2017). The Research and Scholarship Symposium. 5. http://digitalcommons.cedarville.edu/research_scholarship_symposium/2017/podium_presentations/5 This Podium Presentation is brought to you for free and open access by DigitalCommons@Cedarville, a service of the Centennial Library. It has been accepted for inclusion in The Research and Scholarship Symposium by an authorized administrator of DigitalCommons@Cedarville. For more information, please contact [email protected]. The Music We Watch Kelsey De Pree Music History II April 5, 2017 Music is universal. It is present from the beginning of history appearing in all cultures, nations, economic classes, and styles. Music in America is heard on radios, in cars, on phones, and in stores. Television commercials feature jingles so viewers can remember the products; radio ads sing phone numbers so that listeners can recall them. In schools, students sing songs to learn subjects like math, history, and English, and also to learn about general knowledge like the days of the week, months of the year, and presidents of the United States. With the amount of music that is available, it is not surprising that music has also made its way into movie theatres and has become one of the primary agents for conveying emotion and plot during a cinematic production. Because of its extreme versatility music is the ideal medium for such an entertainment form. Composers can use music that is very familiar and therefore relatable to the audience or they can choose to write music that is out of reach, ethereal, and full of fantasy. Movies sit at the center of American entertainment because of the compelling stories they communicate. Music in movies has a significant impact on the viewer’s perception of what is happening by providing musical cues about characters, moods, and plot foreshadowing. Movie communication occurs not only through watching the story but, also, by hearing it. It is the movie music that takes the audience out of their seats and emotionally into the narrative that is unfolding before their eyes. Depending on the movie, the composer may choose to compose, borrow, or arrange for a film score. These choices cannot be made lightly because they drive narrative success. The goal of a movie soundtrack is to be as authentic and unstilted as possible. However, authentic doesn’t always mean original musical ideas or material. Especially in Western cultures, and specifically the United States, movie soundtracks embrace kitsch. Kitschy, as a term derived to describe the arts when used for entertainment, is the idea that something is of low quality yet still amusing to many people.1 While this term is often used negatively, in reality, movie music thrives because of its ability to effectively utilize music that some consider kitschy. Kitsch in soundtracks is playing certain instruments and sounds that people association with certain emotions, cultures, or situations like Native Americans, war, love, and, joy. The point isn’t necessarily to be aurally authentic but to be recognizable. Movie music must be somewhat predictable because its function is to carry the audience between emotional extremes. One scene may be happy and serene but the very next scene takes place in the middle of a horrific war sequence. Emotionally, an audience cannot move between these two extremes as fast as they can visually absorb them. In these situations, music is essential because it bridges this emotional gap much faster than dialogue or visual stimulation. Musical cues help shape and control the audience perception of the story and drive audience interpretation of any given film.When an audience can aurally connect a situation to the action on the screen the switch in emotions is much faster, which is ideal for the pace of most movies. Music is crucial to movies because, though music is a fundamental part of life, there is no natural soundtrack playing as humans go about their days. In other words, films portray life narratives, they are not actually real life and the music in them is for the benefit of the audience. Movie soundtracks are created for the purpose of supporting and 1 Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Online Dictionary, 11th ed, Springfield, MA: Merriam-Webster, 2003. explaining a narrative. The characters in movies are often not even aware that there is music playing. The emotional highs and lows conveyed by movie music are therefore somewhat artificial. “Yet despite the artificiality of the musical score in comparison with everyday life, audiences have come to accept film music as an integral part of what it means to watch a film. Films that fail to use much music or fail to use it well often have a problem involving the audience as completely as films that embrace music as a tool that can expose the inner feelings and thoughts of characters and can shape the way that viewers feel about what’s happening on screen.“2 Even the semi-artificial music becomes new, invigorating and exciting when it is part of a cinematic experience. Music in movies functions with a very clearly defined goal and serves a specific purpose. “Music is making an argument or working to convince or persuade the audience.”3 Movie music works on several levels to affect the overall storyline of the movie. As this author points out, there is a strong tradition of connection between music and movies. In fact, this marriage of music and motion picture became very normal and expected especially after music was incorporated into silent films around. “With the advent of film scoring and ultimately synchronized sound, we begin to have, for the first time on screen, a fixed and permanent association between music and image.”4 The correlation between the music and the emotional experience of watching the movie is undeniable. Music in movies plays a significant role and has a powerful impact on the viewer’s 2 Jessica Green, "Understanding the Score: Film Music Communicating to and Influencing the Audience." The Journal of Aesthetic Education 44, no. 4 (2010): 81 doi:10.5406/jaesteduc.44.4.0081. 3 Ibid., 82. 4 Melanie Lowe, "Claiming Amadeus: Classical Feedback in American Media," American Music 20, no. 1 (2002): 102-19. doi:10.2307/3052244. perception of what is happening by providing musical cues about characters, expected emotional moods, and also by foreshadowing certain elements of the plot. Music suspends or advances plot lines by hinting toward situational outcomes, defines and introduces characters through the use of themes, and leitmotifs, and serves as transitional background between scenes.5 Each aspect of the roles of film music has a distinct purpose for movie viewers. First, it provides cues for the plot and foreshadows events that come later in the film. Sometimes this foreshadowing is directly before events and sometimes it foreshadows something that takes place much later. There are many examples of this type of music usage. The opening scene to the 2006 movie Déjà vu shows the triumphant return of several hundred navy sailors. The sailors are accompanied by their families and are returning to their homes. Everyone is jubilant and merry as they board a ferryboat to head across a river. Visually, there are cues indicating there may be more going on than initially appears. The action all takes place in slow motion and the joyful expressions on the faces of everyone are brought into hyper focus. Though there are strong visual cues, which hint that this is no ordinary celebration, the strongest cue that something is amiss is in the musical scoring of this particular scene. There are a lot of extra-musical sounds like camera lenses adjusting, along with long-held harmonic pitches that accompany the opening credits. When the scene begins and the sailors start to appear, a repetitive motive of So-Lay-May-Ray-May-Do (D, E-flat, B-flat, A, B-flat, G) in G 5 Melanie Lowe, "Claiming Amadeus: Classical Feedback in American Media," American Music 20, no. 1 (2002): 86. doi:10.2307/3052244. minor can be heard being played by the low strings. 6 This motive plays over the percussion, which is in constant pounding motion. The consistent repetition in the percussion coupled with the repetitive minor motive in the low strings signals to an unknown but impending doom, which belies all the happy faces on the screen. When, only a few moments later, disaster strikes the ferry on which everyone is celebrating, this ominous music is visually explained and the soundtrack makes sense. This is the common trend for movies. Instead of implicitly stating to the viewer that something is going to go wrong, the music acts as a powerful plot-suggesting and story-telling device. Often, the foreshadowing creates a disconnect for viewers, between what is seen and what is heard, that drives them to pay attention to the story to ascertain how it will end. The music itself begins to point toward conclusion. Soundtrack music is also used to foreshadow plots by giving aural cues during an otherwise neutral scene. A neutral movie scene is one that can be interpreted several different ways in the absence of any leading verbal or aural cues. The music allows the viewers to form an opinion about what will occur next. A person walking through the streets is one example of a neutral scene.